


just came to say hello

by harinezumi_kun



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-29
Updated: 2011-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harinezumi_kun/pseuds/harinezumi_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jun goes to a party and meets ohno at the bar. ...yay!</p>
            </blockquote>





	just came to say hello

**Author's Note:**

> for [rainbowfilling](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/rainbowfilling), for my bingo square prompt of the same name. actually, this was a prompt i submitted (d'oh!) but i really like the song and wanted to write it anyway ;p shorter and sillier than originally intended, and maybe boring D: but at least i got that bingo square!

When Jun walks into the crowded bar, more then a few people stare, or point and whisper. Jun doesn’t usually _do_ parties and apparently this is a big deal—God forbid someone at this university actually spend time studying.

Jun ignores it as best he can and scans the sea of faces for Aiba. Aiba is the only reason Jun is even here, and only Aiba would rent out an entire bar just for a party, but then Aiba has a _lot_ of friends. How he manages to be this social between his graduate level classes and all the volunteering he does outside of school, Jun will never know.

After about five minutes of fruitless searching, Jun settles himself at the bar counter. Knowing Aiba, he will eventually show up (or return to) the bar at some point, and then Jun can exchange pleasantries, prove he was here, and leave again. He orders something that he can nurse for a while and doesn’t even notice who’s behind the counter until the drink is set down in front of him and a familiar voice says:

“You’re out late. Isn’t your coach about to turn back into a pumpkin?”

“Nino!” Jun says, part surprise and part annoyance. “What—why are you bartending?”

Nino shrugs, his grin making the little curl at the edge of his mouth more pronounced. “I already work here part time—I figure if Aiba was gonna make me come anyway I might as well make some money out of it.”

“Cheapskate,” Jun says, though even he can hear the affection in his own voice. He’s never understood how it is that Nino can be completely reprehensible and completely charming all at once.

Nino just shrugs, fully aware of his own particular charisma. “Hey, did you take notes in Psych yesterday?”

“I should start charging you for copies,” Jun mutters. “Ten yen a page.”

“Have some self-respect—make it at least a hundred,” Nino grins. Then, before Jun can respond: “Hey, check it out. You’ve got an admirer.”

Nino tips his head towards the far end of the bar and Jun follows the motion until he catches the gaze of someone seated on the very last barstool.

The stranger looks away as soon as he sees Jun watching him and Jun gives him a quick once-over: he’s small, round-faced, very tan, his auburn-dyed hair done up in messy spikes. He keeps stealing glances back at Jun.

“Not my type,” Jun tells Nino, taking a sip of his drink.

“He’s cute,” Nino presses. Jun ignores him, and Nino shrugs before walking away to chat up the stranger. Jun watches their exchange for a moment, suspecting that Nino is up to something, but soon Nino has the other man laughing and leaning towards him over the bar, so Jun turns his attention back to the crowd.

Which is a mistake, because a few minutes later the stranger from the end of the bar is suddenly seated immediately to Jun’s right, and Jun can hear Nino saying: “Don’t worry, Jun-chan’s shy like you, you’ll get along great.”

Jun scowls at Nino’s back as the other man dashes away on the pretext of refilling a drink at the far end of the counter. He lets out a little sigh as he turns back to the stranger—now he has to _talk_ to someone. Not that he doesn’t like talking to people, but he likes actually being able to have a conversation, a real, meaningful conversation. He wonders how likely that is at a party organized by Aiba.

“So,” Jun says, when the stranger just stares at him sleepily. “Seems like you know my name already, but I don’t know yours.”

“Ohno,” the man says, giving a little start like Jun jarred him out of a daydream. “Satoshi. Are you really shy?”

Jun stares back at Ohno for a moment, then raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Ohno replies. “Mostly I’m just bad at talking.”

“To people?”

“That too.”

Jun’s other eyebrow pops up to join the first, and despite himself he feels a grin creeping onto his face. He wonders if Nino was so quick to spot this guy because he sensed a kindred spirit. Ohno has that same odd charm—Jun feels like maybe he should be annoyed, but also finds himself thinking that Ohno really is kind of cute.

“So why were you staring at me, before?” Jun asks, sipping slowly at his drink. Ohno has his own hands wrapped delicately around a mug of beer.

“You have a very striking profile,” Ohno says, and Jun would think this is one of the worst pick-up lines he’s ever heard, except that Ohno sounds completely sincere. “I don’t have a pen or anything, so I was trying to memorize it.”

Jun blinks at that. “Memorize…?”

“Yeah,” Ohno nods. “To draw, later.”

“So…you’re an artist?”

“Art student. But usually I build things. Models. For exhibits, I mean.”

“Models?” Jun asks, and when Ohno just nods again: “Of…?”

“Oh.” Ohno’s brows furrow. “Well…things. Little, like, heads. A robot, one time, in a bathtub. And there was one that sort of hung from the ceiling, with these tubes…” He fades off when he sees Jun’s look of bemused confusion. “Um, it’s kind of…”

Jun just chuckles. “You _are_ really bad at talking. It’s generally considered a good conversational strategy to ask the other person questions, too. Or do you only care about my striking profile?”

“Oh,” Ohno says again, looking vaguely distressed. “No, I—I’m sure the rest of you is also…striking.”

Jun laughs in earnest this time and decides maybe he’ll keep talking to Ohno after all.

And as it turns out, it is so, so easy to talk to Ohno. Ohno is nothing like the other art students Jun has met, except for being undeniably eccentric, and the conversation is nothing like what he’s expecting. Ohno has a way of jumping from thought to thought, not unlike Aiba, although Ohno’s jumps are much harder to follow. 

Jun doesn’t mind, and Ohno is a good listener, too, once he gets around to asking about Jun. But he doesn’t ask the usual questions—where are you from, what’s your major—he wants to know what Jun’s favorite food was when he was six, if he eats his favorite thing first or saves it for last, where he got that ring and if he thinks the rubies in the eye-sockets on the skull are real or just glass. He asks if Jun still keeps in touch with his parents, if he’s ever been to Kyoto or Okinawa or anywhere that’s not Tokyo, what he would do if he could have any job he wanted and not just the one he’s going to school for. Jun answers everything truthfully without really meaning to, maybe because it doesn’t seem like Ohno’s asking weird questions just for the sake of asking weird questions, but because they are honestly the first things that come to his mind.

It’s only after his second refill that Jun realizes he’s been sitting here talking to Ohno for over an hour.

“Uh oh,” Jun says vaguely, “my pumpkin. I mean, my coach.” He’s distracted by Ohno’s hair, how whatever product is in it is losing its hold, and it’s slowly falling into Ohno’s face. “I think I am a little drunk.”

Ohno laughs—giggles, really—and he is somehow much closer to Jun than he was when they started.

“ _You_ are a little drunk,” Jun tells Ohno.

“Maybe,” Ohno concedes. “Yes. A little. But, you know,” he says suddenly, leaning into Jun a little more. “I’ve only been drunking—drinking—so I could get up the nerve to ask you to dance. With me.”

Jun feels a flush spreading up his neck to his ears and blames it on the alcohol. “Dance?”

“I like to dance,” Ohno says happily.

“Oh, well,” Jun says, pushing his glass away. “I don’t dance.”

“Didn’t say ‘can’t’,” Ohno trills, and pulls Jun out of his seat by the wrist. “C’mon.”

“But,” Jun protests, digging in his heels, “nobody else is dancing.”

Ohno tilts his head to the side and sticks out his lower lip, apparently unsure why this is a problem. Jun just stares at him, the little pout, the little line of pale skin he can see under the edge of Ohno’s t-shirt sleeve and suddenly wants to touch, and thinks: _really cute_.

He shakes his head again. Focus, focus. He must have had more to drink than he thought. Or Nino was mixing them stronger than he should. Anyway, it’s got to be the booze making him this lightheaded, making him so aware of Ohno’s fingers warm against his wrist.

“Anyway,” Jun says firmly. “I just came to say hello to a friend of mine, I really should be—”

“A friend?” Ohno says, almost to himself, like he’s trying to figure something out. Then he brightens. “A friend. We could be friends. Hi. Hello.”

And Jun looks at Ohno and thinks: _I met this person two hours ago, less than, we can’t be friends already, I barely know him, we can’t be friends at all, why do I like him so much?_

Oh. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Jun can see Nino behind the bar with an enormous smirk on his face. But mostly he’s still stuck on Ohno, looking up at him hopefully, a little mischievously, so odd and charming and the complete opposite of Jun’s type—although now that he thinks of it he’s not entirely sure what his type is—just like this whole encounter was the complete opposite of Jun’s plans for tonight. Distantly, he thinks he can finally hear Aiba’s voice somewhere in the crowd.

He doesn’t go find Aiba. Instead, he turns his hand in Ohno’s grip so he’s holding Ohno’s wrist like Ohno is holding his. He smiles.

“Hello,” he says.


End file.
